Category Archives: The Culinary Alphabet the letter O

Welcome to this month’s The Culinary Alphabet beginning with the letter O bought to you by moi @ CarolCooks2…I can be found over at Esme’s every month come see what interesting ingredients I find as I saunter through the Culinary Alphabet...

It seems to me that the time is just flying by… Thai New Year celebrations finished yesterday and it is Easter this weekend in many cultures…Spring is here and I am seeing lots of pictures of lovely spring flowers which I love.

The letter O…Not as many culinary terms or fruits or vegetables beginning with O but I have a few for you, I hope you enjoy!

Oats

As kids in the winter months, my mum always started our day with a bowl of oats and when it is cold there is no better start to the day…Oats are whole grain, meaning the grain is intact and the kernel is composed of three distinct parts: the bran, endosperm, and germ. Because they are whole grain, they have more nutrients, including vitamins, minerals, and fibre, than other processed grains. Oats also have more soluble fibre than most grains, much of which is beta-glucan, thought to be beneficial for cholesterol.

Oats are naturally gluten-free, however, many oats get introduced to gluten-containing grains, like wheat, rye, barley, and spelt during farming, transportation, and storage. They become contaminated with gluten and therefore are no longer considered gluten-free. If you are looking for 100% gluten-free oats, they must be labelled, gluten-free, so don’t assume any oat is gluten-free.

As a child, my porridge was served with brown sugar or salt now it now is served with all manner of toppings my favourite being a fruit compote or maple syrup (as) a treat…How do you like your oats?

Easy to make oats to top your yoghurt or porridge.

Quick crunchy Oats

1 cup of uncooked oats

1/4 cup of brown sugar

3 tbsp butter

1 tsp cinnamon powder ( optional)

Let’s Bake!

Mix all 3 ingredients together and bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 10 minutes stirring I love to add a bit of cinnamon

Allow to cool and top your porridge or yoghurt.

O’Brien Potatoes

A dish of pan-fried potatoes with red and green bell papers and onions said to originates in The US in the 1900s although no one can agree on which state and another pool of thought is that it was an Irish militant named William Smith O’Brien 1803-1864 who was the only person with that name who had an association with potatoes.

Ocean Pout

Is an eelpout found in the NorthWest Atlantic ocean off the coast of New Zealand and eastern Canada…It has antifreeze proteins in its blood, giving it the ability to survive in near-freezing waters. The ocean pout is an eel-like fish that grows in very cold waters of the North Atlantic. Said to have very sweet meat and it has few bones but is not a popular commercial fish. This is partly because of its appearance and also due to parasitic outbreaks in the mid-twentieth century. Not a fish I have tried but often little known fish are very tasty…Below is a recipe I found for eelpout.

About Carol Taylor:

Enjoying life in The Land Of Smiles I am having so much fun researching, finding new, authentic recipes both Thai and International to share with you. New recipes gleaned from those who I have met on my travels or are just passing through and stopped for a while. I hope you enjoy them.

I love shopping at the local markets, finding fresh, natural ingredients, new strange fruits and vegetable ones I have never seen or cooked with. I am generally the only European person and attract much attention and I love to try what I am offered and when I smile and say Aroy or Saab as it is here in the north I am met with much smiling.

Some of my recipes may not be in line with traditional ingredients and methods of cooking but are recipes I know and have become to love and maybe if you dare to try you will too. You will always get more than just a recipe from me as I love to research and find out what other properties the ingredients I use contain to improve our health and wellbeing.

The environment is also something I am passionate about and there will be more on this on my blog this year

Exciting for me hence the title of my blog, Retired No One Told Me! I am having a wonderful ride and don’t want to get off, so if you wish to follow me on my adventures, then I bid you welcome! I hope you enjoy the ride also and if it encourages you to take a step into the unknown or untried, you know you want to…….Then, I will be happy!

Connect to Carol

MeWe is a new social media and one which many of us are turning to mainly migrating over to as FB has banned many of my friends and for what seems no good reason that we can see I hope you will join us there.